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Starting Small:
Using Little Microbes to Tackle Big Philosophical Problems
(Essay Review of O’Malley’s Philosophy of Microbiology)
Makmiller Pedroso
mpedroso@towson.edu
Philosophy & Religious Studies
Towson University, USA
At first glance, the field of microbiology might seem too specialized to have an impact on
philosophy. Someone who has taken an introductory class in philosophy may imagine that philosophy only focuses on questions that deal with humans and other complex animals. Examples of
such questions include ‘Is euthanasia morally permissible?’ ‘Do we have free will?’ ‘Is liberalism
well-justified?’ For such a person, microbes might seem too simple to matter in philosophy. The
book Philosophy of Microbiology by Maureen O’Malley offers an alternative picture. O’Malley convincingly argues that microbiology can be a “game changer” for philosophy of biology and other
subdisciplines of philosophy—including philosophy of mind, environmental ethics, and philosophy
of science. O’Malley makes her case by meticulously describing particular aspects of the microbial
world and outlining how they can stimulate new avenues for research in philosophy.
In the first chapter of Philosophy of Microbiology the reader is greeted with a curious microbe,
the magnetotactic bacteria, a single-celled bacterium that lives in aquatic habitats. These bacteria
are equipped with tiny compasses that allow them to orient themselves in the Earth’s geomagnetic
field. Magnetotactic bacteria use these compasses to migrate downwards to their preferred habitat,
regions with little or no oxygen. This behavior suggests that their compasses evolved to prevent
them from being exposed to oxygen at the surface water. What is the relevance of magnetotactic
bacteria to philosophy? A prominent research agenda in philosophy of mind involves providing an
evolutionary account of our capacity to have mental states (e.g., thoughts) that represent external
objects (e.g., a bicycle). The ability to make accurate mental representations could be viewed as an
adaptation, gradually crafted by natural selection over an extended period of time. Magnetotactic
bacteria provide a minimal model to test this hypothesis. In such a model, the compasses of
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magnetotatic bacteria represent the type of information they were selected to discriminate, possibly
“the direction of the oxygen-free water” (Millikan, 1989, p. 291). With such a minimal model at
hand, we can use evolutionary accounts of magnetotaxis—the ability to navigate according to the
Earth’s magnetic field—to study how representation devices could have evolved.
How did magnetotaxis evolve? A reasonable hypothesis is that magnetotaxis was directly favored by natural selection because magnetotatic bacteria were better at navigating away from welloxygenated areas than their competitors. A major challenge for this hypothesis is that magnetotaxis
does not seem to be the most efficient navigation system. Other microbes use more direct clues to
navigate to their preferred habitats, such as light and oxygen concentrations (pp. 28-29). So, why
did magnetotactic bacteria opt for such a baroque representation system? Maybe their compasses
initially evolved for other purposes (e.g., some metabolic function) and were later co-opted to serve
as a navigation system. The ability of such compasses to represent the direction of the oxygenfree water might have been a by-product of earlier rounds of selection. Philosophy of Microbiology
discusses this and other hypotheses for the evolution of magnetotaxis in detail (p. 28ff.). Thus,
although magnetotaxis is not as feature-rich as human mental states, it furnishes a valuable model
to test different hypotheses of how representation devices could have evolved.
Philosophy of Microbiology does not advance a particular account of how magnetotaxis or mental
representations evolved. This is not O’Malley’s aim. Her goal is to illustrate a particular strategy
of how microbes can be used to construct models in philosophy. Here is O’Malley’s suggestion in a
nutshell:
[P]ick an analogous microbial phenomenon to the human one you want to understand
naturalistically, and see if this clarifies what the phenomenon is, and why the distinctiveness of the human version of this capacity is (p. 34)
Microbial examples serve as models for other phenomena of large organisms too, for example
the ability of multicellular organisms to develop (p. 117ff.). In the 1990s, some philosophers turned
their attention to developmental biology, partly because of the role of development at constraining
the type of variation on which natural selection can operate (e.g., Amundson, 1994). Although
development is typically associated with multicellular organisms, cells in microbial communities
also differentiate in a genetically controlled manner. One example is the life-cycle of biofilms, a
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type of microbial community, where cells display multiple phenotypes regulated by certain genes
(Hall-Stoodley, Costerton, and Stoodley, 2004). Animal development and cell differentiation in microbial communities are certainly different processes, but comparative studies between microbes and
metazoans could be illuminating. As O’Malley remarks, “[p]atterns similar to those of metazoans,
such as network conservation, hierarchy and modularity, have been identified in the evolution of the
regulation of prokaryote and even virus development” (p. 122). Once we recognize that microbial
cells can also differentiate in a genetically controlled manner, it becomes artificial to limit the field
of evo-devo to animal development.
Despite their small size, microbes rule the animal world. As O’Malley shows, microbes are
implicated in many phenomena philosophers are interested in. Consider development once again.
The development of many multicellular organisms is primed to the colonization of microbial communities (p. 118ff). During the development of the bobtail squid, for instance, a specialized organ
is formed that allows young squids to recruit the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fisheri from the
environment. Leaving the microbes out of the picture would fail to explain the evolution of some
of the developmental programs in the bobtail squid (Chapter 4; McFall-Ngai, 2014). Microbiology
is also relevant for key issues in environmental ethics. Since most life is microbial and the health
of ecosystems depends on microbes, a strong case can be made for the preservation of microbial
ecosystems (p. 202ff.). Despite this, little is being done to protect microbes endemic to particular
environments, such as hot springs, from extinction (Cockell and Jones, 2009). As O’Malley points
out, microbial examples are also helpful for studying what the units of conservation should be. The
instrumental value of microbes to humans—e.g., the Earth’s climate—is largely due to bacterial
ecosystems rather than to individual species. This suggests that, in certain cases, the units of
conservation should be the function of certain ecosystems rather than species (p. 205ff).
A recurrent theme in Philosophy of Microbiology is that microbiology is a fertile field for novel
research in philosophy. Take the problem of defining biological species, such as Homo sapiens and
Salmonella enterica. Although the species problem has attracted the attention of many philosophers,
much of this work does not take microbiology into account (see Ereshefsky, 2010, for an exception).
Yet, the biology of microbes makes defining microbial species particularly difficult (Chapter 3). A
major reason for this stems from how prokaryotes exchange genes. In animals, genes are typically
transmitted vertically, from parents to offspring via reproduction. In prokaryotes, on the other hand,
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gene transfer can occur outside of reproduction via Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT). The fact that
prokaryotes can exchange genes horizontally makes it particularly challenging to define microbial
species in terms of phylogenetic relations (p. 72ff.). The phylogeny of prokaryotes is inferred from
the evolutionary history of a small portion of their genome, often the 16S rRNA gene localized in
their ribosomes. But depending on the extent of genes horizontally transferred, a species definition
based on a specific gene will generally fail to specify what conspecific organisms have in common
(p. 74). Conspecific organisms could share a specific genetic marker while being very dissimilar in
other regions of their genome. HGT casts doubt on how informative it is to define species in terms
of particular genes, such as the 16S gene.1
The evolutionary significance of HGT is not limited to the notion of species in microbiology.
Darwin and others after him suggested that the evolution of life could be represented in terms
of a single tree, where the lines represent species and the nodes represent speciation events. The
fact that prokaryotes can exchange genes horizontally puts a strain on the assumption that there
is a single (bifurcating) tree of life (p. 80ff.). A significant portion of the genome of prokaryote
cells is prone to HGT. Moreover, unlike reproduction, HGT is not restricted to members of the
same species. Accordingly, rather than providing cumulative evidence for the same tree of life, the
phylogeny of horizontally transferred genes may support incongruent trees. If someone decides to
focus on specific genetic markers, such as the 16S gene, the resulting tree of life will discard too
much information. As Dagan and Martin (2006, p. 118.2) nicely phrase it, a tree based on specific
genes—such as the 16S gene—will not be the tree of life but the “tree of one percent of life” at best.
In this way, instead of a bifurcating tree, HGT suggests that a reticulate tree or a web might be a
more accurate depiction of the evolution of life (Chapter 4; Doolittle, 1999).
Philosophy of Microbiology suggests a particular strategy for studying evolution:
[T]hat it may be most effective to construct any properly general account of evolution
from the microbes up, rather than the macrobes down (p. 130).
For example, someone that takes a macrobes-first perspective might be tempted to think that
there is a sharp line distinguishing unicellular organisms from multicellular organisms. Adopting a
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In addition to discussing the problem of defining species in microbiology (Chapter 3), O’Malley also discusses
debates about the classification of microbes above the species level, such as kingdoms and the disputed prokaryote/eukaryote distinction (Chapter 2).
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microbes-first perspective suggests otherwise:
Although most people—from both biologically trained and untrained perspectives—
might think that multicellularity is an empirically obvious category, confidence in the
notion of a clear line between unicellularity and multicellularity is likely to dissolve
when an ecological perspective, particularly a microbial one, is brought to bear on life
(pp. 156-157).
Let me to elaborate O’Malley’s point by focusing on one of the examples she cites, biofilms.
Biofilms are densely packed microbial communities that stage a myriad of social interactions.
Cells within biofilms communicate via signalling molecules, aggregate with each other, and engage
in chemical warfare. HGT mediates many of these social interactions within biofilms. Consider one
specific type of HGT called ‘conjugation.’ In conjugation, Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) are
transmitted through cell-cell bridges from one cell to another. MGEs are analogous to infectious
agents: they are self-interested DNA segments that can benefit or harm their hosts. Sometimes
MGEs encode selectively advantageous traits, such as antibiotic resistance (Davies and Davies,
2010). Additionally, biofilms provide a favorable setting for conjugation—probably because of the
increased cell density and stability of biofilms (Sørensen et al., 2005). In this way, genes within a
biofilm can be thought of as a communal good that different cells can tap into via HGT (p. 105;
Ehrlich et al., 2010).
As O’Malley remarks, the role of HGT in microbial communities such as biofilms suggests that
they are ‘superorganisms,’ collectives akin to multicellular organisms (pp. 105-6). If so, biofilms are
superorganisms of a curious sort. Multicellular organisms such as ourselves undergo ‘reproductive
bottlenecks’: we start very small, from a single-celled zygote, and we then blow up to the size of a
person. Multicellular organisms begin and end with single-celled bottlenecks. However, as O’Malley
notes, microbial communities such as biofilms do not undergo reproductive bottlenecks (p. 158). For
this reason, O’Malley considers definitions of organisms that do not require reproductive bottlenecks
(p. 158ff.). Let me suggest an alternative route. Specifically, consider the following question instead:
can biofilms perform some of the functions of reproductive bottlenecks by alternative means? Two
functions are typically associated with reproductive bottlenecks. One of them is that reproductive
bottlenecks foster evolutionary change in organisms. Because an embryo starts anew every genera5
tion, new mutations in early development can exert a multitude of downstream effects on the mature
organism (Dawkins, 1982; Godfrey-Smith, 2009). However, HGT can produce evolutionary innovations by creating new combination of genes within a biofilm (Ereshefsky and Pedroso, 2013, forth).
For instance, Ehrlich et al. (2010) advance the hypothesis that the resilience of biofilms associated
with chronic infections is in part due to HGT constantly producing novel strains with improved survival conditions in the host. The other key function of reproductive bottlenecks is to decrease the
chance of conflict between the cells within an organism by increasing the genetic relatedness among
the organism’s cells. HGT performs this function in biofilms. In particular, horizontally transferred
MGEs can infect non-cooperative bacteria and turn them into cooperators—if the MGEs in question
encode the cooperative gene (Nogueira et al., 2009). This is not to say that there are no important
differences between reproductive bottlenecks and HGT in biofilms. Reproductive bottlenecks foster
evolutionary change because mutations in early development are transmitted to the cells in the adult
organism; HGT promotes evolutionary novelty in biofilms by shuffling genes around (Ehrlich et al.,
2010). Reproductive bottlenecks increase genetic relatedness by causing cells in the adult organism
to share the same genome, the zygote’s genome; HGT, in contrast, increases genetic relatedness with
respect to a restricted portion of a cell’s genome (Birch, 2014). Yet, HGT in biofilms can achieve
some of the effects of reproductive bottlenecks, production of evolutionary novelties and reduction of
conflict.2 Although biofilms (and other microbial communities) do not satisfy standard definitions
of organisms, my overall suggestion is that multicellular organisms and microbial communities may
achieve similar effects (e.g., increased genetic relatedness) via alternative evolutionary mechanisms
(e.g., reproductive bottlenecks versus HGT in biofilms).3
Philosophy of Microbiology is part of a growing literature that brings to the fore the significance
of microbiology to philosophy (e.g., Dupré, 2012; O’Malley, 2013). O’Malley’s book provides a
superb overview of this literature and suggests different ways microbiology can be incorporated
into philosophical research. Microbial examples can serve as suitable model systems; microbes
are key players in many phenomena in the animal world that philosophers are interested in; and
microbiology is a fertile field for novel research avenues in philosophy. Furthermore, O’Malley’s
book is accessible to newcomers. Key concepts from microbiology, such as HGT, are explained
2
3
In addition, biofilms can undergo ‘ecological’ bottlenecks, such as cases in which biofilm infections are initiated by
a few cells or when biofilms are subject to antimicrobial treatment (Brockhurst et al., 2010).
Cf. Clarke (2013), Doolittle and Zhaxybayeva (2010), and Ereshefsky and Pedroso (forth).
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in detail as she uses them (she also provides a glossary at the end of her book of some technical
terms). In sum, Philosophy of Microbiology is a lucid, accessible, and well-argued book. The reader
will not only be introduced to intriguing facts about the microbial world, but she will also gain an
appreciation of how connected the fields of microbiology and philosophy are.
Acknowledgments: I thank Ellen Clarke and Hanna Sheehan for their helpful suggestions on
earlier versions of this essay.
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